Cooler months frequently herald a rush of farm fencing activity, but rarely have fence materials been in hotter demand than in the past year or so.
Solid beef, sheepmeat and goat returns and better wool earnings have underpinned a steady climb in spending in many areas.
So, too, has an emerging revolution in big budget, super-sized feral fencing projects in pastoral regions, even in drought-weary parts of western Queensland and NSW.
Tax incentives for farm investment projects; bushfire reconstruction activity in South Australia, and adoption of new fence layouts for rotational grazing programs or to make stock management easier have contributed to surging demand for wire and posts.
“Our mills are running 24-seven and we’ve needed extra staff,” said OneSteel Rural’s sales and marketing manager, Brett Howlett, whose range includes popular locally-made brand, Waratah.
“We haven’t been as busy as this for a very long time - it’s probably the best year I can recall nationally in 15 years.
“We’ve had sales growth and increased our market share as many people have realised the long-term economic return they’re getting from spending on high quality materials and some fairly innovative product developments.”
Greater use of farm management deposits to accumulate funds for infrastructure upgrades when they were needed was also enabling many producers to start projects which maximise their livestock earning capacity.
Ruralco boss, Travis Dillon, confirmed sales in most fencing categories were about 20pc up on a year ago across the farm services company’s network, which includes rural merchandise group CRT.
While last summer’s SA and West Australian bushfires had been an unfortunate reason for some of the spending spike, most farmers appeared to be upgrading existing fencing after several seasons of good livestock prices had generated enough funds to pay for overdue improvements.
“End of financial year orders have kicked in about a month earlier than normal this year,” Mr Dillon said.
“The tax depreciation allowance on fencing has most likely encouraged some of those purchases.”
Farm accountant and director with RMS Bird Cameron at Albury, Jason Croker, said although fence repairs had always been a tax deductible expense, current government investment sweeteners ensured all new fences qualified for a tax deduction write-off over just three years.
Normally such costs, including silos, sheds and stockyards, were written off over three, four or more decades.
With Canberra’s accelerated depreciation opportunity only open until the end of the 2016-17 financial year many farmers had fast-forwarded their spending plans.
“People doing maybe 10 or 15 kilometres of fencing work could easily be spending $50,000 or more,” Mr Croker said.
“Silos are probably an even busier investment choice around here at the moment.”
Although many areas were not so seasonally fortunate, he said much of his Riverina client base was generally doing “particularly well”, with strong local spending on fencing and other improvements reflecting good seasons and rewarding beef and lamb markets.
“Cattle producers, in particular, have been putting off making these spending decisions for quite a while.”
OneSteel’s Mr Howlett noted it wasn’t just the livestock sector driving demand, with market-jaded graingrowers also doing more fencing as they swung back to more profitable stock and crop enterprise mixes.
Croppers were also investing in far more robust, new-age fencing to keep kangaroos, pigs, and emus out of paddocks.
“Traditionally you have a fence to keep your animals in, but we’re seeing that’s only a fraction of the story these days,” he said.
Huge farm productivity gains are being made by keeping unwanted animals out.
Western Queensland woolgrower and mayor of Blackall-Tambo Regional Council, Andrew Martin, said a 300km cluster fencing project involving about 25 properties in his area triggered an almost instant productivity hike, after wild dogs, kangaroos and pigs were locked out in 2014.
Lambing percentages alone on his property, “Macfarlane” soared from 7pc to 72pc in the first year, while the number of wild dogs destroyed dropped from 247 to just a handful in 12 months after 48km of hinged joint and barbed wire perimeter fencing about 1.5 metre high was completed.
Despite lingering drought conditions grazing productivity was up by as much as 50pc in the cluster area, as was native wildlife such as koalas, brolgas, potoroos and goannas.
Funding assistance from Queensland’s South West Natural Resource Management body covered 23pc of materials costs leaving producers to pay an average $3.75/ha to achieve a 25pc productivity lift.
Mr Martin estimated $15m had been spent on feral-proof cluster fencing in an area centred on Blackall, with similar initiatives further north towards Winton and in South West Queensland around Cunnamulla now underway or completed.
State and federal government funds totalling $6m was recently allocated to South West NRM to help landholders in Balonne Shire and further afield to keep wild dogs out.
“These fences are re-creating the wool industry in country that is really suited to sheep production - we’re reinvigorating Queensland’s south and west,” Mr Martin said.
“And every dollar a woolgrower makes from sheep translates into about $6 spent on goods and services in the local community.”